Baseball: Past and Present

What he did: This is a story of two baseball owners, one a used car salesman from Milwaukee, the other a Texas oilman. After Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent was forced to resign in 1992, these two men were looked at by the other owners as possible replacements. Bud Selig of course got the job and continues in it today, nearing his 20th anniversary of becoming commissioner. George W. Bush ran for governor of Texas and six years later, president. The rest is history.

Bush has said he felt God wanted him to lead the country. But it’s easy to see where his interests still lie, from a reference to steroids during his 2004 State of the Union Address to his presence at the World Series this year watching the team he owned in the late 1980s and early ’90s, the Texas Rangers. I haven’t been a huge supporter of Selig as commissioner, and in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn’t a fan of the Bush presidency either, though I’d have loved to see what he could’ve done in Selig’s place. Selig has seemed a pawn of the owners, presiding at times spinelessly over troubled stretches for baseball. Love him or hate him, Bush would never have gone for that.

Era he might have thrived in: I wish Bush had been commissioner instead of Selig, not just because it would have kept him away from the Oval Office. He’d have been an asset to baseball. And Bush might have done well heading up the sport at other points in its history, too. With his willingess to have two black Secretary of States, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, perhaps Bush would have stood tall like Happy Chandler against the owners of the mid-1940s who voted 15-1 against Jackie Robinson’s signing. Or Bush could have made an able successor for Ford Frick in the mid-1960s, a marked upgrade over the timid, forgotten William Eckert.

Why: Bush’s brazen approach to foreign policy alienated much of the world and, at least for me, made for eight long years. But this attitude could work well with baseball, where the best commissioners and leaders for the most part have been resolute in their rule and willing to stand up to owners, players, whoever.

Ban Johnson had all the charm of a czar and built the American League, the only upstart to the National League in baseball history that’s survived. Kenesaw Mountain Landis was as autocratic a commissioner as any past federal judge could be expected, sweeping in after the doomed 1919 World Series and ridding baseball of game-fixing scandals that were endemic in the early 1900s. I don’t like what Landis did to systematically keep blacks from the majors in his 20-plus years in office, though he essentially set the standard for commissioners. Others have followed suit in his ruthlessness. Ford Frick crushed the Continental League and helped ignite the expansion movement in the process. Bartlett Giamatti had the guts to ban Pete Rose.

I don’t know what Bush’s claim to fame would be as commissioner. But come to think of it, it isn’t too late for him to make his mark in baseball. Joe Torre just quit a league-level job to make a bid for the Dodgers (as, I would add, John F. Kennedy’s dad tried to do for him in the 1940s.) Maybe it’s time for Bush to see about Torre’s former gig. It would sure beat sitting on some board of directors, or whatever it is the former commander-in-chief is up to now.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Cesar Cedeno, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Eddie Lopat, Elmer Flick, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jack Morris, Jackie Robinson, Jim Abbott, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Posnanski, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty Grove, Lefty O’Doul, Major League (1989 film), Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Ollie Carnegie, Paul Derringer, Pedro Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Bro
thers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Wes Ferrell, Will Clark, Willie Mays

Introduction

Maurice Morning Wills was the heart and soul of the Los Angeles Dodgers offense. From 1959 to 1966, Chavez Ravine was packed with fans who were the antithesis of today’s stereotyped laid-back, casual Southern California fan. When their lithe shortstop and team captain Wills would get on base, Dodger Stadium rocked with exhortations of “Go….Go….Go.” It came with good reason– Wills revolutionized baseball with his base stealing, setting the stage for speedsters such as Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson. Opposing pitchers and position players alike were seemingly hypnotized, fans were mesmerized, and Wills’ aggressive running helped make Los Angeles great.

A snap-shot summary of Wills’ amazing career

Maury Wills demonstrated that a good little man could be equally effective as a good big man. At 5’10” and 165 pounds, Wills hit 20 home runs in his 14-year career but scored 1,067 runs thanks to savvy base running. He stole 586 bases and was the National League leader in steals for six consecutive years, 1960 to 1965. This included his record-setting single-season mark of 104 in 1962 when Wills broke Ty Cobb’s mark of 96 steals from 1915. Wills, the National League MVP in 1962, even played a record 165 regular season games that year, thanks to the three-game playoff with the Giants that ended the Dodgers’ season.

Other career highlights for Wills included:

• Five-time NL All-Star (1961–1963, 1965, 1966)
• Two-time Gold Glove Winner (1961-1962)
• NL Triples Leader (1962)
• Four-time NL Singles Leader (1961-1962, 1965, 1967)
• Helping spark the Dodgers to four pennants and three world championships in eight years. The 1965 World Series against the Minnesota Twins as Wills’ best as he collected 11 hits for a .367 average in seven games and a .387 OBP.

Wills was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1966 season, went to the Montreal Expos in their inaugural season of 1969, and returned to the Dodgers that June. Before retiring after the 1972 season, Wills was named MVP for the 1971 Dodgers as he batted .281 with a .323 OBP and led his team to a blistering September stretch drive that brought LA from eight games back early in the month to within one game of the first place Giants. The Dodgers finished second place and one game out, their best showing since winning the NL Pennant in 1966 and a preview of the Babes of Summer 1970s era in which the Dodgers were pennant winners in 1974, 1977, and 1978.

Persistence, patience, and determination

Wills signed with the Dodgers in 1951 and spent almost nine years in the minor leagues. The knock on him was that he wasn’t enough of a hitter to be a serious prospect. However Wills honed his base running skills and remained a persistent if not visible prospect until he made a major breakthrough in 1958– under manager Bobby Bragan he learned to switch hit. When Wills learned to hit left-handed and batted .313 for Spokane, the Dodgers finally called him up. Wills differentiated himself with the dynamic combination of switch hitting and voracious base running that would soon be the Dodgers most potent offensive weapon as they dominated the National League from 1959 to 1966.

With the Dodgers not only making the geographic transition from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, but gradually replacing the Boys of Summer homerun hitting/slugger style to a pitching-running-defense mode, Wills eased into both the shortstop position and later the team captaincy anchored by Pee Wee Reese since 1940. Wills joined the Dodgers mid-season in 1959 as a 26-year-old rookie and helped Los Angeles capture the National League pennant. Wills only stole seven bases in 83 games but was the offensive spark for the Dodgers winning the World Series in six games over the “Go-Go” White Sox of Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox. With the simultaneous emergence of the greatest righty/lefty pitching duo in baseball history– Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax– it was the beginning of a mini-dynasty and a revolution.

Revolutionizing the game with “Hot Wheels” base running

Having celebrated his 27th birthday with a World Series title and now regarded as a 10-year overnight success (a humorous reference to his lengthy minor league apprenticeship), Wills was soon off and running, literally. He stole 50 bases in 1960 to win his first stolen base crown. Then there was 1962. Not only was it the first time a player topped 100 stolen bases in a season, it vastly exceeded the steals totals for each team. In the 1994 book Baseball: An Illustrated History, it is noted that during the first seven years of the 1950s, not one of the 16 MLB teams had stolen 100 bases. Just five years later, Maury Wills’ 104 stolen base mark would signify the shift toward what Roger Angell would write of as a combination of tap-ball and hot-wheels base running.

With the constant threat of base stealing, Wills was able to upset the timing of opposing pitchers and alter the stance of opposing position players by putting them into a defensive posture. Maury Allen wrote of the Dodgers offense as Wills getting on, stealing second base, and then scoring on a hit by Tommy Davis, Ron Fairly, or Willie Davis. With the Dodgers record-setting Drysdale/Koufax pitching tandem, ably supported by very competent third and fourth starters like Claude Osteen, Johnny Podres and Don Sutton and stalwart relief pitching from the likes of Ron Perranoski and Jim Brewer, this low-scoring but consistent offensive threat enabled Los Angeles to defeat superior hitting teams such as the Giants, Reds, and Pirates.

Another way Wills altered the game is that he showed how a team could consistently manufacture runs with this high pressure, aggressive base stealing approach. During 1959-1966, the Dodgers scored 5412 runs in 1280 games, an average of 4.23 runs per game. During the 1965-66 pennant winning seasons, Dodgers averaged less than 3.75 runs per game. But given the manner in which LA registered its run scoring totals by moving the men around the bases through hit-and-run, sacrifice and steals, the Dodgers record-setting pitching staff coupled with efficient fielding was able to consistently play at this level throughout the course of a 162-game season.

As a result, in this same period, the Dodgers finished first four times (1959, ’63, ’65-66) and second twice (1961-62.) Moreover, the Dodgers had a winning record each season except 1964 and averaged 91 wins per year. The same cannot be said for its hard-hitting NL rivals, despite those teams having superior fire power. In other words, a weak-hitting Dodger team led by Wills that could consistently manufacture runs was a very formidable opponent because of the deadly combination of aggressive base running, efficient fielding, and superior pitching.

Wills’ contributions are best reflected in how his stolen bases contributed to three World Series Championships in eight seasons for Los Angeles. But his legacy goes beyond that. Wills’ style of play is now a standard weapon in the arsenal of most contending MLB teams. When he burst on the scene in 1959 and then led the NL in stolen bases for six consecutive years, Wills stole better than any man since Ty Cobb. Eventually, with other teams- notably the Cardinals acquiring Lou Brock in 1964- treating the stolen base not as an artifact from the distant past but a perennially relevant and powerful offensive weapon, the excitement of the game was now heightened.

The hypnotic effect: the story behind the story

In today’s saturated sports media world, the personal struggles of a professional baseball player being revealed to the public is no longer news. But in the 1960s such revelations were uncommon. Wills made big news with the revelation he used hypnosis to help cope with the psychological and physical struggles of stardom.

Following his ’62 MVP season, Wills gave a lengthy interview to Melvin Durslag of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner where he explained how hypnosis enabled him to overcome physical discomfort and anxiety associated with holding an athletic championship. The irony, of course, is that Wills achieved his MVP status by hypnotizing the opposition with his constant threat of base stealing. Now he was revealing how hypnosis was helping him as a baseball player. But it also helped lead to Wills’ shocking banishment from the Dodgers following the 1966 season.

The Intimate Casebook of a Hypnotist, by Arthur Ellen with Dean Jennings, published in 1968, provides a most insightful perspective on this aspect of Wills’ career. Wills consulted with Ellen on a recurring basis during the 1960s, and while Durslag wrote in his article of how much Wills valued his hypnosis sessions with Ellen, it is the hypnotist’s casebook that provides a rare look at what took place and its consequences. Prior to Ellen’s book, The Artful Dodgers by Tom Meany revealed the Dodger team captain to be a person with a very high energy level and keyed up to play every game as if it would be his last. Perhaps this can be attributed to Wills having to play in minor league obscurity for almost 10 years before reaching the majors.

In Meany’s book, Wills explained he had to follow a routine each day that often included playing his banjo to stay relaxed during the season. In this same book, and citing the Durslag interview and subsequent article, Wills is a strong adherent regarding the benefits he received from hypnosis. This was as far the hypnosis story went until Ellen’s book was published two years later.

Ellen’s book revealed that Wills thought he would be unable to sustain his high level of play following his MVP season in 1962 due to the physical pain, hemorrhages, scars, and bruises on his legs resulting from the often violent slides along the base paths. Ellen noted that beneath Will’s cool façade was a turbulent spirit that was often tense and insecure when it came to his athletic achievements. Through a series of hypnotic sleep sessions Ellen was able to help Wills overcome his anxiety (and overprotective attitude) concerning his legs so that he walked away from treatment with a springy step and a smile replacing the tight lips and jaw muscles which had been straining when he first arrived.

Wills continued to perform at a high level in the ensuing years but once again sought out Ellen following the 1966 season. The Dodgers had just lost the World Series in four straight games to the Baltimore Orioles and were in the midst of an exhibition tour of Japan. Since Wills was team captain and a major box office draw, Dodger management insisted he make the trip. The 1966 pennant race was one of the most intense in baseball history, with the Dodgers, Giants, and Pirates all clustered together for six months. It was not until the final day of the regular season that the Dodgers emerged as pennant winners, but it came at a high price.

Both the pitching staff and everyday players such as Wills were exhausted by season’s end. After just three games Wills bolted from the team while in Japan and showed up several days later in Honolulu where he joined his musical friend, Don Ho and entertained night club audiences with his banjo playing. When he arrived home in Los Angeles Wills had three more hypnosis sessions with Ellen where he expressed fear that his playing days were numbered due to the physical pain and scarring on his legs as well as mental exhaustion from the rigorous season-long pennant race. Again, Ellen was able to reset Wills back on the right track and the Dodger captain was ready to resume his baseball career.

However, a nasty surprise was soon in store as Dodger management traded Wills to the Pittsburgh Pirates as punishment for his defection during the Dodgers Japanese exhibition tour. The loss of face for a legendary franchise steeped in tradition like the Dodgers, occurring in a nation where courtesy, good manners and a fierce devotion to baseball are accorded the highest priority was too much for Dodger ownership and management to accept.

It’s worth noting the two seasons where Wills posted his highest batting averages occurred in 1963 and 1967 following his intense hypnosis sessions. Both years, Wills batted .302, the only times he topped .300, in fact. Was there a direct connection? It is axiomatic that hitting a baseball is one of the most difficult of all athletic feats. Since Ellen observed that after both occasions in 1962 and 1966, Wills was noticeably more relaxed and confident it is not unreasonable to infer that these benefits carried over, and thus made a positive difference at the plate in the ensuing seasons of 1963 and 1967.

Defining an era and farewell

Maury Wills helped define the glory days of the 1959-1966 Dodgers. His return from exile helped making the Dodgers a contender once more. Earlier it was noted that Wills was named team MVP for his inspiring leadership and on-field play during the 1971 season. In the years following the retirement of Sandy Koufax after the 1966 season– save for Don Drysdale’s record-setting six straight shutouts in 1968 and Willie Davis’ 31-game hitting streak in 1969– Dodger fan attendance had declined along with the team’s fortunes. The renaissance of 1971 resulted in the highest Dodger home attendance since its last pennant in 1966. Although his stolen base totals were well below his ’60s numbers, Wills’ presence once again upset the timing of opponents and served notice the Dodgers were again a contender.

The Dodger resurgence in 1971 was featured in a September 27 Sports Illustrated cover story “Dodgers and Giants at War Again – General Maury Wills” with the Dodger team captain leading his troops against their longtime rival. The article highlighted a series of games between the arch rivals that were eerily similar to their storied battles from both the 1950s and 1960s. Appropriately, this was the last hurrah for Wills, as he and fellow ’60s infield mates Jim Lefebvre and Wes Parker retired after the 1972 season. This paved the way for the eventual Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey infield that would be the nucleus for the Babes of Summer teams of the 1970s. But even in the swan song season of 1972, there was still an opportunity for one more moment of glory for the Dodger team captain who had revolutionized the game.

On Saturday evening June 10, 1972 the Dodgers in their 51st game of the season defeated the defending World Series Champion Pittsburgh Pirates 2-1 in the second contest of a 3-game series at Chavez Ravine. Longtime Dodger fans
such as yours truly who was listening on his transistor radio, along with 38,937 in attendance, witnessed Maury Wills leading LA into a first place tie with late-game heroics that were right out of the glory days of the 1960s. Here is the account of those late innings.

In the bottom of the 8th inning with the game tied 1-1, Wills led off with a single to left field. Bill Buckner, batting second, sacrificed Wills to second base with a bunt groundout. The next batter, Manny Mota, singled to center field with Wills running all the way and coming in to score the go-ahead run. With the next batter, Frank Robinson, grounding into an inning-ending double play, it was left to the stalwart Dodger pitchers to hold this lead. In a moment seemingly out of the glorious past, starter Claude Osteen and reliever Jim Brewe held the Pirates to 1-hit in the top of the 9th inning and preserved the 2-1 victory for LA.

I recall listening on the AM dial that night. Following the Dodger post-game wrap-up, in the ensuing radio show featuring famed LA radio host Paul Compton, he opened his program with signature “cool jazz” music declaring it was an evening to celebrate the return to glory for “the captain” Maury Wills as he led the Dodgers back into first place with the same late-game heroics that had made the former NL MVP a longtime fan favorite. By this time, Bill Russell was being eased into the shortstop position so this appearance by Wills was truly his valedictory performance in a Dodger uniform. But what a fitting way to close out a career, in front of a home crowd to boot.

About the author

George A. Haloulakos, MBA, CFA – Teacher, Author and Entrepreneur. Chartered Financial Analyst [CFA] and consultant: DBA Spartan Research and Consulting specializing in finance, strategy and new business ventures. Award-winning university instructor. Published author of DOLLAR$ AND SENSE: A Workbook on the ABCs of Investments. Hobbyist – aviation, baseball, spaceflight and science fiction. Lifetime member of Strathmore’s Who’s Who Registry of Business Leaders. Member of ordained clergy in Orthodox Church in America (rank/title of Reverend Protodeacon).
E-mail: Haloulakos@gmail.com.

Bibliography

The Artful Dodgers, Tom Meany. Grosset & Dunlap, 1966.
Baseball: An Illustrated History, Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns. Alfred Knopf, 1994.
Baseball’s 100: A Personal Ranking of the Best Players in Baseball History, Maury Allen. A & W Publishers, 1981.
Baseball-Reference.com
Franklin Big League Baseball Electronic Encyclopedia, 1993.
John M. Deegan, Baseball Enthusiast and Collector.
The Intimate Casebook of a Hypnotist, Arthur Ellen with Dean Jennings. New American Library, 1968.
The Los Angeles Dodgers: An Illustrated History, Richard Whittingham. Harper & Row, 1982.
Once a Bum, Always a Dodger: My Life in Baseball From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Don Drysdale with Bob Verdi. St. Martin’s Press, 1990.
On the Run: The Never Dull and Often Shocking Life of Maury Wills, Maury Wills and Mike Celzic. Carroll & Graf, 1992.
Personal Collection of George A. Haloulakos, Baseball Hobbyist. CDs, DVDs, scrapbook of news and magazine articles, baseball cards, game programs and books.
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy, Jane Leavy. Harper Collins, 2000.
“Dodgers and Giants at War Again – General Maury Wills,” Sports Illustrated, September 27, 1971.
The Summer Game, Roger Angell. Bison, 1972.
Vassilios E. Haloulakos – Scientist, Engineer and Professor. Personal library and recollections from his face-to-face meeting with hypnotist Arthur Ellen in 1969.

Editor’s note: I’m pleased to present a first-ever guest edition of “Any player/Any era” by Albert Lang, one of the voters and writers for my project last month on the 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame.

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What he did: Over the holidays, my fiancé’s sister gave me some unopened baseball card packs from the late 80s/early 90s. I got a shocking amount of Pedro Guerrero cards, including the 1990 Donruss MVP one. I sort of remembered Guerrero but certainly not as an MVP type guy. So, obviously, I had to cruise to Baseball Reference, and, my god, Guerrero slugged: .300/.370/.480 for his career with 215 HRs in 6,115 plate appearances with the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals.

Despite hitting well (.305/.355/.470) in his first four tastes (658 plate appearances) of the majors with the Dodgers, the team would not give him a full time role until 1982, when he was 26. Of course, it probably helped that he slugged five RBIs in game five of the 1981 World Series. Guerrero took the opportunity and ran with it, hitting .304/.378/.536 with 32 HRs, 27 doubles and 22 steals in ‘82. In so doing, he became the first Dodger with 30 HRs/20 SBs in a season. He became the second player to do so the following season.

While those years were all well and good, 1985 would be his East of Eden: .320/.422/.577, leading the league in OBP and slugging. During one stretch, he reached base 14 consecutive times, two plate appearances short of the record set by Ted Williams. Unfortunately, he ruptured a tendon during Spring Training in 1986. He did have some successful seasons thereafter, but he was never quite the dominant force he was with the Dodgers. Still Guerrero was a filthy hitter, a player Bill James called “the best hitter God has made in a long time.”

Era he might have thrived in: We’re sticking him in the American League in 1925. This was a pretty decent hitter’s era, one that would emphasize Guerrero’s ability to get on base. More importantly, he would fit in perfectly on the ’25 Philadelphia Athletics. He could slide in for Jim Poole at first base and greatly improve an already potent line-up. In addition, he could take at bats from the somewhat light-hitting outfielder Bing Miller. Of course, he’d be pushed out of the way once the Athletics decided to use Jimmie Foxx. Until then, Guerrero would be something.

Why: To quote Bill James in referencing Guerrero trying to play the infield: “Guerrero’s long war with third base.” Guerrero simply could not play third base. In 1983, he made 30 errors, tied for the 24th most by a third baseman in a season since 1946 (numbers via the SABR Baseball List and Record Book).

Without the burden of trying to play third, Guerrero would be free to do what he did best: mash. If you use his neutralized batting, Guerrero would be an absolute force from his age 25 through 29 seasons with the Philadelphia Athletics. At 29, he would hit .358/.462/.650 and his career line would be .333/.405/.529 with 242 HRs.

Had Guerrero played in the 20s, his numbers would look a lot more astounding. That said, even in his era, Guerrero compiled an .850 OPS, the 52nd best in MLB history by a right-handed batter (min. 5,000 PA) (numbers again from the SABR Baseball List and Record Book).

Also, hopefully playing in simpler times would help the simpleton Guerrero. In 1999, Guerrero was arrested while trying to buy 33 pounds of cocaine. He was eventually acquitted of drug conspiracy charges after his lawyer argued his low IQ made it impossible for him to grasp that he had agreed to a drug deal. In addition, later in ’99, O.J. Simpson called 9-1-1 to report his girlfriend missing. During the call he said she had been using drugs with Guerrero.

The 1920s, a simpler, better time for Pedro Guerrero.

You can follow Albert on twitter: https://twitter.com/h2h_corner

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Cesar Cedeno, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Eddie Lopat, Elmer Flick, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jack Morris, Jackie Robinson, Jim Abbott, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Posnanski, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty Grove, Lefty O’Doul, Major League (1989 film), Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Ollie Carnegie, Paul Derringer, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Wes Ferrell, Will Clark, Willie Mays

When looking back at Don Mueller’s outstanding career, one thing jumped out at me. In 93 percent of Mueller’s plate appearances, he put the ball in play—no strike outs or walks. In twelve major league years, his most productive ones with the New York Giants, Mueller struck out only 146 times, a total exceeded in a single season by Hall of Famers like Willie Stargell and Mike Schmidt.

On July 11 however, against his father’s old club, Mueller hit for the cycle by collecting four hits off four different Pirates’ pitchers (Vernon Law, Bob Friend, Jake Thies and Paul La Palme): a double to left field, a triple to right center, a single to center, and in his final at-bat, a home run into the right-field seats off lefty Dick Littlefield. The round tripper, Mueller’s first home run of the season, was a rarity for the man known as “Mandrake the Magician.” Mueller often described himself as a Leo Durocher-type of ballplayer —hit and advance the runner.The preceding year, Mueller finished fifth in the batting race, .333, and was the most difficult batter to strike out, whiffing only 13 times.

Mueller is best remembered for his pivotal role in the 1951 National League final playoff game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants. With the Dodgers leading New York by 13-1/2 games in August, the Giants went on a late season tear to win 39 of their final 47 games that forced the do or die series.

Tied at one game each and with the Dodgers leading 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning of the deciding contest, the Giants’ Alvin Dark singled. Mueller, the next batter, took ball one but then noticed that first baseman Gil Hodges was holding Dark close to the bag. Mueller promptly singled passed Hodges to move, Durocher-esque, Dark to third. Whitey Lockman doubled to left to score Dark. But Mueller as he advanced to third tore tendons in his ankle. Mueller missed the rest of the game and the ensuing World Series against cross town rival New York Yankees

With Bobby Thompson the next batter, Giants’ fans would have settled for a single that would have scored pinch runner Clint Hartung, Mueller’s roomy, and tied the game. Instead, Thompson delivered the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” winning home run (5-4) off Ralph Branca which Mueller listened to on the radio, alone in the clubhouse.  (See Thompson’s home run here.)

Mueller, 84, died in suburban St. Louis on December 28.

Editor’s note: “Does he belong in the Hall of Fame?” will run on Friday this week. For now, please enjoy the latest from Alex Putterman.

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Statistical comparison between baseball players decades removed from each other is undeniably dangerous – conditions and circumstances change wildly from generation to generation, making such analysis exceedingly difficult. For example, hitting 15 home runs in 1910 is much different than hitting 15 home runs in 2011, and winning 20 games in 1910 is much different than winning 20 games in 2011. But, like many dangerous things, these cross-era comparisons are often too tempting to resist. We love to argue over whether Barry Bonds was a better hitter than Babe Ruth and whether Pedro Martinez’s 2000 season was better than Walter Johnson’s 1913 or Bob Gibson’s 1968.

This enjoyment of comparison was the impetus for a blog post published here a few weeks ago, for this post, and for others I plan to write in the coming months. Today, I’ll break down the statistics of two all-time great Hall of Fame outfielders and attempt to conclude whose career was more productive. There’s of course no right answer, and if the players I’ve selected are as comparable as they seem to me, this should spark some debate and maybe even objection. What I present is only one opinion, achieved through totally objective, un-biased analysis of statistics.

Despite that preface and disclaimer about comparing players from different eras, the two players I’ll examine here actually overlapped by 14 seasons. Each reached the 3,000 hit plateau while playing for one team throughout his entire career. Each combined hitting prowess with excellent defense at a corner outfield position. And each was easily elected to Cooperstown in his year of eligibility.

Here are blind resumes of the two greats in question:

Player A: 399 home runs, 137 stolen bases, 134 OPS+, 91.0 WAR, 15-time all-star, 10-time gold glover, four top-5 MVP finishes

Player B: 452 home runs, 168 stolen bases, 129 OPS+, 88.7 WAR, 18-time all-star, seven-time gold glover, one MVP, two top-5 MVP finishes

Choosing between the two based on those numbers alone is very difficult, although player A probably gets the slight nod, having apparently been a more efficient hitter and better fielder than player B. As it turns out, player A is Al Kaline, the legendary Detroit Tigers rightfielder, and player B is Carl Yastrzemski, the similarly hallowed Boston Red Sox leftfielder.

And as close as those statistics appear, the deeper you delve into the careers of Kaline and Yastrzemski, the more and more difficult it become to discern who was better.

During Yaz’s absolute prime, the eight years from 1963 to 1970, the leftfielder posted an OPS+ of 152 and a WAR of 54.1. That stretch is far more impressive than any consecutive eight year period Kaline can boast of (Kaline’s best consecutive eight year run was probably 1955-1962, a time during which his OPS+ was 137 and his WAR 46.7). In what we’re calling his prime, Yaz led the league in batting average thrice and OPS+ four times. In Kaline’s entire career, by contrast, “Mr. Tiger” only once led the league in either category, winning a batting title in ’55. Yastrzemski’s triple crown 1967 season was by far the best single season ever by either player, and his ’68 and ’70 seasons were arguably better than Kaline’s best season (probably ’55) as well. For those who value peak performance over longevity, the argument stops right here. Yaz’s best was better than Kaline’s best, and, to some, that means the Red Sox star was a better player than his Tiger counterpart.

But the wider the window through which we compare the two, the more the stats favor Kaline. If we extend the aforementioned eight-year stretches into 10-year stretches, Yaz’s WAR edge dwindles, and when we tack on three more years and examine the players’ best consecutive 13-year intervals, thereby taking into account Kaline’s excellent 1967 season, the Tiger grabs a slight lead in WAR. The bottom line is that while Yaz had by far the best single season, easily the best two-year period, and even the best eight-year stretch, Kaline, due to superior consistency and extended excellence, had, I believe, the better career.

Since Kaline’s advantage in OPS+ is essentially negated by Yaz’s extra 2,500 career plate appearances, we can conclude the two were roughly equal as hitters. Both those who watch baseball and those who design algorithms agree Kaline and Yastrzemski to have been terrific defensive players; Yaz is 7th all-time in dWAR according to baseballreference.com, while Kaline is tied for 14th, but Kaline was, if gold glove totals are to be accepted as evidence, considered by his contemporaries as slightly superior with a glove, and right field in Tiger Stadium was certainly larger and therefore more difficult to cover than left field at Fenway Park.

The difference between the two players might be base-running. Although Yaz has a few more career stolen bases than Kaline, Kaline swiped his bags at a much better rate (68% to 59%). According to baseballreference, Kaline was, over the course of his career, worth 41 runs above replacement on the bases, while Yastrzemski was actually two runs below replacement. Speed wasn’t the defining aspect of either player’s game, but Kaline appears to have employed his better than did Yaz.

Yaz won the MVP trophy Kaline could never get his hands on, but Kaline’s wealth of high finishes shows that while he may never have been the single best player in the American League, he was consistently among the elite. Yastrzemski’s inability to match Kaline’s tendency to year after year finish among the top vote-getters for the MVP award supports what we concluded earlier: Yastrzemski had a terrific peak but didn’t remain MVP-caliber as long as Kaline did.

And so this discussion comes down to the unavoidable debate of peak vs. longevity. I don’t mind considering prime performance as a tie-breaker, but while this match-up is very nearly a tie, I think Al Kaline was, ever so slightly, a better player than Carl Yastrzemski. When gauging the productivity of the two players’ entire careers, Kaline seems to come out ahead. If you prefer Yaz on the strength of his dominance in ’67 and ’68 or, more broadly, from 1963-1970, that’s fine too. You take the better eight years; I’d rather the better 22.

I haven’t done one of these in awhile, so here goes. This is an occasional BPP feature and probably the most allegorical thing we do. Credit the great Josh Wilker for originally posting a lineup card of his favorite writers. Today, we look at high court justices, past and present.

P- Earl Warren: The longtime head of the Supreme Court might be its Cy Young. Among Warren’s biggest decisions: ending school segregation, guaranteeing Miranda Rights, and ensuring that political representation correlated with population size. And in his bravest performance, akin to Young’s 20-inning loss to Rube Waddell in 1905, Warren overcame personal reservations and led the commission that investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

C- William Howard Taft: The only man to serve as both president and chief justice would crush any runner dumb enough to challenge him. Scott Cousins would long for the days of flattening Buster Posey while being pried out of Taft’s 330-pound girth. Never again would the Miami Marlins agree to an exhibition against a court.

1B- William Brennan: Lou Gehrig’s got nothing on Brennan, an Iron Horse of justice from 1956 to 1990. Brennan was a progressive, known for his views and writing the decision in New York Times v. Sullivan that established that actual malice was needed for libel judgments involving public figures. The journalist in me appreciates that almost as much as my inner baseball historian loves Gehrig’s “luckiest man in the world” speech.

2B- Thurgood Marshall: Marshall was the first African American justice with his appointment in 1967, so he’ll patrol where Jackie Robinson played the most games in his career.

SS- Sandra Day O’Connor: Who’s the perfect double play partner for the first black man on the court? The first woman. Granted, O’Connor would protest vociferously, telling court beat writers she’d been a star right fielder in the federal appellate leagues. None of the writers would listen, though, unaware O’Connor found their Phil Rizzuto comparisons deeply patronizing. And Rizzuto, for his part, would never get over his subsequent nickname of Sandra.

3B- Hugo Black: The 1919 Chicago White Sox were a deeply divided team with first baseman Chick Gandil refusing to speak to star second baseman Eddie Collins for two years. Black and Marshall might be the Gandil and Collins of this team, thanks to Black’s one-time membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

RF- Antonin Scalia: Right field’s an appropriate place for a right-leaning judge. Scalia would be known for his rifle arm, confusing to some who’d question if it was a reference to his support for the National Rifle Association.

CF- Oliver Wendell Holmes: Ask the average high school or college student to name any Supreme Court justice who hasn’t sat on the bench in their lifetime. They might know of Holmes, who has a name out of a Charles Dickens novel and was a legend of the 19th century high court. He’s Pete Browning here.

LF- William Rehnquist: Rehnquist marched to his own beat during his time on the court, a Nixon-era appointee who cast the deciding vote in Bush v. Gore in 2000. He’ll play left field.

Other starting lineups: Beatles songs, ex-presidents, writers

Today is the first day of a brand new year and while I usually simply consider the night before and this day to be just like any other, my thoughts have been turning recently and more and more to the past.  Guess it’s a result of getting older and a somewhat slow baseball off season.

It all started a couple of months ago when an ad for old baseball cards caught my eye.  As I scrolled down the list of this particular website, a set which I had thought no longer existed and one which I had occasionally dreamed about owning again one day caught my eye.  The 1962 Post Cereal baseball set.

I can’t recall how many of the actual set I had owned as a kid, (probably not more than 30 or 40 of the original 200 cards), but I have never forgotten the very first cards I cut off the back of the cereal box.  Looking at the pictures of the cards brought back a flood of memories.  I remembered the smell of the cards.  I remembered   making my mother wait (patiently?) In the grocery store while I searched for those cards I didn’t yet have never mind the type of cereal it might be, and I remembered emptying the box in a bowl, not being able to wait a week or so until the box was empty.

I would look at my six new cards over and over again, carefully cataloguing them with any others I might have.  I would listen to that night’s game on the radio and whenever a player came to bat, or pitched, I would pull out that card.  In my mind’s eye, I could see all the action on the field all those many miles away.  My card collection continued to grow and one lucky day, a friend of mine who was moving to Germany that fall, gave me a shoe box stuffed with baseball cards.  I now had Bowman and Topps and I can’t remember what else, but there must have been a couple of hundred cards in that old shoe box.

No one else I knew cared about baseball, Canada was then and is now a hockey country, and the only baseball game on television was the once a month Saturday Yankee or Dodger game on the French station of the Canadian Broadcasting corporation.  I didn’t at that time understand any French but that didn’t matter.  I really didn’t know any of the players, which ones were stars and which were not.  To their credit, my parents would let me watch the game.  They had no interest in baseball and probably didn’t understand my love for the game.  I probably didn’t understand it either-but I knew for whatever reason, I cared about nothing else.

In those days, the off season really was the offseason.  It was next to impossible to find any baseball news from the end of the World Series until that first Saturday game in April.  Sometimes there were no games until May or even June.  I suppose the information was out there in magazines such as The Sporting News and sports Illustrated, but I didn’t have the money to subscribe to any of those publications.  The first baseball magazine which came out each year was Baseball Illustrated with their pre season preview and I sometimes managed to find a copy of Street and Smith.  Baseball Illustrated had color pictures of the leagues previous season leaders.  These, of course, went up on my wall first thing.  My chances of actually seeing a major league game were less than nil.  These pictures, along with my Post baseball cards, were all I had to look at and dream about.

Over the past couple of months I have been purchasing the 1962 Post Cereal baseball cards from what has turned out to be an excellent and very reliable website. I don’t usually go for the stars although I have purchased Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax to name a few of the stars from that era.  But my most prized are the three I originally cut off that cereal box way back in 1962.  Woody Held, Vada Pinson and Lee Maye were those first.  I take those three out and look at them every day.  I have a special box for them.

When I look at them, I am seven years old again. When I look at them, baseball once again is free of player salaries and steroid scandals and all the rest. I am innocent and I feel safe. I know I’m not alone.